Kai was asked to speak in sacrament meeting. He was super nervous. Not nervous to speak, but nervous that he would lose control and cry through the entire thing. It was a valid concern because he is my child and emotions are pretty surface sometimes, and it had happened before.
I promise him that he had been reading the book of mormon everyday, and one of the promised blessings is overcoming fear. We put in the work. He prepared, practiced a ton, and then we trusted.
HE DID IT!!
He stood up there and delivered it better than I had ever heard him before.
He even pulled off the joke perfectly. He said he felt like he was going to cry once, but he didn't. Heavenly Father came through. He keeps His promises.
I hope Kai never forgets this experience.
It was a big deal in his life. So grateful!
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Kai Tullis and I was asked to speak on the topic “How Can I Become Spiritually Self Reliant?”
The First thing we need to know when we are trying to become spiritually self reliant is what Spiritual self reliance is, so what is self reliance? Self reliance is when you can take care of yourself and you don’t need to rely on other people, so this means that spiritual self reliance means that we have a testimony and we don’t have to rely on other peoples testimonies as much.
So how do we get or strengthen our testimony? In the talk “The Power of a Personal Testimony” by Dieter F. Uchtdorf it tells us the 4 steps to gain a testimony.
The first step is to Desire to Believe. This means we have to have hope and really want to have a testimony.
After we really want a testimony and have hope, we then have to search the scriptures. In the talk it says: “Have questions; study them out; search in the scriptures for answers… through diligent study of the word of god the good seed will begin to swell within your breasts… This good seed will enlarge your soul and enlighten your understanding.
The third step is to keep the commandments, and do the will of god. In president Uchtdorf’s talk it reads “Casual study is not enough. We have to get in on the action ourselves, and that means learning and doing God’s will.
The fourth step is to Ponder, fast and pray. Basically what this means is all we need to do after we've done these steps is to ASK, and we will gain a testimony.
A great example from the scriptures of someone who was spiritually self reliant was Nephi. The Lord commanded his father, Lehi, to take his family, leave his home and all his belongings, and go into the wilderness.
Nephi made an effort to find out for himself and not just rely on his father’s knowledge. He followed the same pattern for gaining a testimony that President Uchtdorf talked about.
First- Nephi had a desire to know for himself that this is what the Lord wanted. Next, he prayed about it. He was obedient and followed the promptings he received.
I can relate a lot to Nephi. In 1 Nephi 2:16 it says, “And it came to pass that I, Nephi, being exceedingly young (just like I am), nevertheless being LARGE IN STATURE (That sounds a lot like me:), and also having great desires to know of the mysteries of God, wherefore, I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did visit me, and did soften my heart that I did believe all the words which had been spoken by my father; wherefore, I did not rebel against him like my brothers.”
Nephi made an effort to know for himself and this made all the difference. When he faced challenges, this knowledge gave him comfort and strength to do the right thing.
His brothers, Laman and Lemuel, did not have this same knowledge. In verse 12 it says, “And thus Laman and Lemuel, being the eldest, did murmur against their father. And they did murmur BECAUSE THEY KNEW NOT THE DEALINGS OF THAT GOD WHO HAD CREATED THEM.”
I think this means that they had not made an effort and did not have a testimony or a desire to know. They were not spiritually self reliant and this led to them murmuring and complaining.
I just got back from a from a scout camp in Moab where we were river rafting and it was really fun. When we were there we were in groups on rafts. We got in a lot of fights where we shoved each other of the raft and tried to tip and take over other rafts. When we got shoved of the raft we had to where life jackets so we wouldn’t sink.
I think this is a little bit like our testimonies. The raft is like other peoples testimonies and we can rely on them part of the time but we also have to a life jacket and have our own testimony. We need it for when we our having struggles and fall of the raft and this is when it’s important to be spiritually self reliant.
One thing that I am doing to be more spiritually self reliant and gain a testimony is read my book of mormon every day. I am reading a chapter before i go to bed every night. I hope that as i do this i can become more like Nephi and feel the spirit in my life. In the name of Jesus Christ amen.
